Search found 794 matches

by Art Carlson
Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:11 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Polywell FOIA
Replies: 475
Views: 185730

Whatever the theoretical belief each one of us have the fact remains that only a correct set of experiments can prove or disprove it. We will gain knowledge in any case. Prove or disprove what? That a polywell can be used for economical fusion? Making money selling polywell electricity would prove ...
by Art Carlson
Fri Mar 05, 2010 5:31 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Polywell FOIA
Replies: 475
Views: 185730

Except that Dr. N. has already stated they have shown that the Polywell isn't subject to (maybe he said limited by) classic collision theory. So who am I to believe? You who repeatedly gripes that you have no data or the man who has the data? Dr. N., who has no axe to grind here (having a cushy job...
by Art Carlson
Fri Mar 05, 2010 12:41 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Polywell FOIA
Replies: 475
Views: 185730

Ah, so the "no, stop here" is not a show stopping stop, but really a starting place for the hard work (and money)? There's still that 1% chance it'll work even though basic physics arguments say it won't. If you are out of investment opportunities with a 50-50 chance of success, or even a 1-in-20 c...
by Art Carlson
Fri Mar 05, 2010 12:05 pm
Forum: News
Topic: Polywell FOIA
Replies: 475
Views: 185730

That's pretty concise, thanks. And time and funding are irrelevant to point 3b, where Polywell stops? [*]Are energy loss rates due to classical collisions tolerable? Polywell - NO! Stop here. As far as I know this has not yet been proved experimentally, so it might be a little to early to say NO. T...
by Art Carlson
Fri Mar 05, 2010 11:01 am
Forum: News
Topic: Polywell FOIA
Replies: 475
Views: 185730

And Polywell was funded for those 30 years as Tokamak was? It's not just a question of time and money. Ask these questions first, in this order: Is the configuration in equilibrium? Tokamak - check Polywell - check Is the configuration MHD stable? Tokamak - check Polywell - check Are energy loss ra...
by Art Carlson
Fri Mar 05, 2010 8:10 am
Forum: News
Topic: LPP fusion experiments getting ten times more neutrons
Replies: 57
Views: 34939

Where's the low temperature side of the loop? Are you guys taking this idea seriously? Well, I guess it is a slow news era. I was more worried about ground water contamination myself. Heat sink? I guess you'd need to use conductive heating into the cooler rock at the elevation of the generator. Tha...
by Art Carlson
Thu Mar 04, 2010 9:05 am
Forum: News
Topic: LPP fusion experiments getting ten times more neutrons
Replies: 57
Views: 34939

Actually, you could just explode it then pour water in and use the steam until you need another explosion. Something like home made geothermal. I'd really like to see the primary vs secondary loop isolation on that one. Don't worry about radiation, just drop your turbo generator most of the way dow...
by Art Carlson
Sun Feb 28, 2010 8:24 am
Forum: Theory
Topic: What Quality the Losses?
Replies: 13
Views: 6465

Who wants to explain what this E stuff means in such a way that I can understand the parts? I always found this strange. The fusion cross section first increases rapidly and then levels off with the velocity, which should scale like the square root of the voltage. The losses (says Bussard, and he's...
by Art Carlson
Fri Feb 26, 2010 8:33 am
Forum: News
Topic: LPP fusion experiments getting ten times more neutrons
Replies: 57
Views: 34939

Eric Lerner [is] not a quack. Eccentric, yes, but a solid scientist. Maybe I should clarify my opinion of Lerner. I would not call him a quack. I would call him a scientist, albeit with some reluctance. The qualifier "eccentric" is indisputably accurate. I would object to the qualifier "solid". He ...
by Art Carlson
Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:09 am
Forum: News
Topic: LPP fusion experiments getting ten times more neutrons
Replies: 57
Views: 34939

Jesus, you guys are harsh. I just talked with Eric Lerner and Mureli on Monday, and no, he's not a quack. Eccentric, yes, but a solid scientist. I would be interested in knowing how you reached this conclusion. Hopefully not just on the basis of a friendly conversation. Have you read his papers? Do...
by Art Carlson
Wed Feb 24, 2010 8:40 pm
Forum: News
Topic: LPP fusion experiments getting ten times more neutrons
Replies: 57
Views: 34939

You can definitely make a decent plasmoid this way. Where Lerner goes crazy is thinking that the field can twist around in such a way as to produce a small but extremely dense plasmoid - in violation of the virial theorem.
by Art Carlson
Wed Feb 24, 2010 8:54 am
Forum: News
Topic: LPP fusion experiments getting ten times more neutrons
Replies: 57
Views: 34939

Of course, their explanation is garbage. You want the field to compress the plasma. The fusion yield goes as n^2*V, which is the density times the particle inventory. All other things (in particular the particle inventory and temperature) being equal, big and tenuous should give you less neutrons th...
by Art Carlson
Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:54 am
Forum: Theory
Topic: Suppression Of ELMs in Toks
Replies: 7
Views: 3856

I talked to a tokamak friend last week, and he said this is the Next Big Thing. Everybody (ASDEX-Upgrade, JET, ...) is building internal coils into their machine to suppress ELMs. Whether this is a breakthrough or a sign of desperation is a matter of opinion.
by Art Carlson
Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:39 pm
Forum: News
Topic: New Nasa Spaceflight On pB11
Replies: 35
Views: 12975

Tom, you mention "fuel mix has to be around 8 hydrogens to one Boron in order to minimize bremsstrahlung radiation." Can you expand on how that works? For given energy distributions and no impurities, the fusion power is proportional to n_p*n_B and the bremsstrahlung power is proportional to n_e^2*...
by Art Carlson
Thu Dec 31, 2009 11:13 am
Forum: News
Topic: Tri-Alpha Rumor
Replies: 119
Views: 60799

One of the reasons we have so much politics on talk-polywell is because of the precarious state of funding. There is a certain amount of competition for fusion research money worldwide, and public interest/political pressure was partially what got EMC2 revived. We may yet need that interest to prev...